A professor at the CUNY School of Journalism, a columnist at the Daily Beast, and the author of The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, Beinart is quickly making a name for himself as one of the country’s most well-respected commentators on domestic and international politics—and someone you can invite on TV who won’t foam at the mouth.

It’s been an interesting year for Beinart: In June, he wrote one of the most interesting pieces on American Jewish identity that we’ve read all year in the New York Review of Books, and his book has amassed heaps of praise from every outlet that matters.

This week Beinart sat down with Jewcy.com to talk about the Zionist movement in the United States, and whether Eric Clapton has the power to forge peace on the Korean peninsula.